The New Trading for a Living: Psychology, Discipline, Trading Tools and Systems, Risk Control, Trade Management

✅ The 3 Pillars for Gaining Profit

Elder repeats this throughout the book. Miss one, and profits will not last.

1️⃣ Trading Psychology (The Most Important)

The biggest enemy is not the market — it is you.

Key rules

• Do not trade for excitement
• Emotional trading = guaranteed losses
• Winning traders feel calm, not excited
• Focus on process, not money
• After profits → stay humble
• After losses → stay small

Big idea

• Traders behave like addicts
• Losses trigger revenge trading
• Profits trigger overconfidence

Elder uses Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) principles:

• Admit you cannot control losses
• Trade one day at a time
• Follow strict rules, no exceptions

✅ Profit comes from discipline, not intelligence

Trading Psychology

Trading psychology is the mental and emotional state that influences how you make decisions when trading. As your previous image highlighted, it is often considered 50% of the battle—more important than your strategy or technical skills.

While technical analysis tells you what to do, trading psychology determines if you actually do it.

Success in trading is no longer about discipline alone.
It is about mastering processes that make you adaptive, creative, productive, and emotionally intelligent.

Smart Money Concept (SMC)

Smart Money Concept (SMC) is a trading methodology that focuses on analyzing how institutional investors (banks, hedge funds, market makers) move the markets, using tools like market structure, liquidity grabs, order blocks, and supply-demand zones to anticipate price direction. It’s essentially a refined version of price action trading, designed to help retail traders align with “smart money” rather than fight against it.

Direct Access Trading (DAT) and Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF)

Direct Access Trading (DAT) is a high-speed trading method that allows investors to place orders directly on financial exchanges without broker intervention. It's especially popular among day traders and professionals globally who need rapid execution and full control over their trades.

An Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) is a low-cost investment product that pools assets like stocks or bonds and trades on stock exchanges just like individual shares. ETFs offer diversification, liquidity, and transparency, making them popular among both beginner and professional investors in Cambodia and globally.

⚡ What Is Direct Access Trading (DAT)?

Tokenized Stocks

Tokenized stocks offer a range of benefits over traditional share ownership by leveraging blockchain technology to provide fractional ownership, 24/7 global trading, faster settlement times, and increased transparency. 

As of late December 2025, the tokenized stocks market cap has reached about $1.2 billion, marking a record milestone for blockchain-based representations of traditional equities like Tesla, Apple, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft.

₿UY TOKENIZED STOCKS
⛃ KuCoin: Register here

🌐 What Are Tokenized Stocks?

Digital representations of real equities: Shares of companies like Tesla or Apple are mirrored on blockchain as tokens.

Price Peaks and Bottoms

Price peaks and bottoms refer to turning points in a price chart where the market shifts direction.

They help traders identify trends, reversals, and potential entry/exit points.

DeFi (Decentralized Finance)

DeFi (Decentralized Finance) is a blockchain-based financial system that removes intermediaries like banks and brokers, allowing peer-to-peer transactions through smart contracts. It enables lending, borrowing, trading, and earning interest directly on decentralized platforms without paperwork or centralized control.

Market Assets

Market assets refer to financial instruments or commodities that are actively traded in markets and have a market-determined price. These are assets that investors buy and sell based on supply and demand.

Remark: Global Liquidity Index is not cover on Market assets

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Types of Market Assets

1. Equities (Stocks)
   • Shares of companies traded on stock exchanges.
2. Bonds
   • Debt instruments issued by governments or corporations.
3. Commodities
   • Physical goods like gold, silver, oil, wheat.
4. Currencies (Forex)
   • Exchange of different national currencies.
5. Cryptocurrencies
   • Digital assets like Bitcoin, Ethereum.
6. Derivatives
   • Futures, options, and other contracts based on underlying assets.

Global Liquidity Index (GLI)

Global Liquidity Index (GLI)

• GLI up = bullish for crypto, possibly neutral or slightly bullish for gold (inflation hedge).
• GLI down = bearish for crypto, bullish for gold (safe haven).

The GLI aggregates major central bank balance sheets worldwide, converted to USD for consistency and expressed in trillions. It adjusts the U.S. Federal Reserve’s balance sheet by subtracting the Treasury General Account (TGA) and Reverse Repurchase Agreements (RRP) for a clearer view of U.S. liquidity. Users can customize which central banks and accounts to include.